Mask and Temptation
by Sassaphrass
Summary: A little introspective on Madness and Death.


**A/N: I don't even know anymore. I was just rummaging through the dusty files of my Kindle for a story to work on or demolish, when I came across this thing that I started yet never finished (shocking, I know). I decided "what the hell, it beats anatomy" so now I have finished it for you to suffer through and scream in dire agony. No need to thank me.**

 **Seriously, I'm not even sure this thing is comprehensible to others, but feel free to try.**

 **Review and tell me what you think. Por favor, mi amigos :)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own _nothin'._**

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Mask and Temptation

Most people seem to fear Death. With good reason, of course. After all, Death is the one who swings his sharp scythe without discrimination or care. Wether old or young, man or woman, mother, father, sister or brother, Death will always be there to greet you. Death might be there before a child's first breath, and he will always be there for their last. It doesn't matter if it's a hero fighting on the battlefield or a man cowering like a rat, demise greets all in the open arms of the Reaper.

Even Death himself has suffered by his own hand. He has heard the swan songs of his precious students, heard the dying laments of followers, he even had to snatch the breath of dearest friends. From the elders who embrace him with a smile, to the small children who don't understand what an ending is. None are safe from his dreadful reach, not even himself.

Madness happens to be strikingly similar to Death. It resides in all, and embraces all with open arms. But unlike Death, who chooses to stay for a moment and escort souls to piece, Insanity chooses to stay and fester inside the mind. Madness eats away at a person's sanity to the point where it overcomes its bonds and engulfs their entire being.

It matters not who you are. Insanity appears as a friend to everyone who is willing to humor it. Wether saint or sinner, the sweet little nothings coming from the lips of Delusion is a siren's song to fall prey to.

Madness allows the mind to embrace every crevice of itself and so much farther. It opens the door for unimaginable dreams to envelope the mind. Often, often these dreams are filled with sin and blood. Wrath, greed, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust, pride, the deadly sins that are bound in blood to Madness that allows them to flourish.

But that is why Madness is positively _alluring._

It grabs your heart's deepest desires and waves them in your face to mock about what a soul can not possibly hope to conquer. The growing want and obsession form a parasite in the mind, consuming and robbing your sanity of what it holds most dear until nothing is left but the ravings of a mad man and his one want.

But is Madness a true evil?

Just like Death, it has its purpose in the world. It serves as the incipient of imagination, which is why it resides in all of us. Of course, too much insanity may lead to a cacophony of desperate voices in your mind and a blade dangling from your fingertips. But just that trace of extraordinary delusion in the crevices of a mind to match can allow for even greater to emerge. After all, how else did you expect for inventions of your wildest dreams to swim about this earth? It takes a mad man to create the impossible because he is the only one willing.

But a mad man can bring disaster upon himself and others. A man of insanity embraces his gift and so much more, leading to the birth of a monster and his shattered reality.

And that is where Death makes his entrance once more. To spare the beast of his frantic ravings and needles suffrage. Every victim that drowns in the pool of delusion will be greeted as if a friend by the Reaper. Because they need a friend to coerce them from their sorrows, nobody else will.

That's why Death wears a mask of kindness, for Death is a kindness. But he brings so much misery to those around him.

Madness and Death go hand in hand to make the world turn. Madness causes imagination which, when out of bounds, ruins the vessel it dwells within. It is Death's job to stop Insanity from bringing destruction upon itself and everything around it. A life of a lunatic festering in his own insatiable desire for an obsession gone sour is no life for a person on this earth. A wound upon the flesh can rot away an entire society, it _must_ not fester.

That is why Death wears a mask of kindness and Madness a visage of temptation. But which mask will grab your soul first?


End file.
